Prince2 2009: Prince2 Gets a Facelift

Prince2 is being updated by the UK government’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC). Prince2 is the standard adopted by the UK government for Project Management methodology and is widely used in private industry in the UK, but has had limited success competing with the PMI’s PMBOK^® on the global stage.

The new version of Prince2, to be officially released June 16^th, introduces 7 principles of project management. The Prince2 definition of a principal is:

· It is universal and self-validating – that is it is shown by empirical evidence to be true.

· They are a guide to project management best practices.

The methodology has been simplified by reducing the existing 8 processes to 7 and by eliminating the sub-processes which had been confusing practitioners of the methodology. The sub-processes have been replaced by activities which describe the work that must be done, when it is to be done, and by whom it is to be done.

The 8 existing components of the methodology have also been replaced by 7 “key themes” of project management: Business Case, Organisation, Plans, Risk, Progress, Quality, and Issues & Changes. The Configuration Management component has been re-positioned in the Issues & Changes key theme.

The new Prince2 methodology is supported by 2 texts: “Prince2 in Practice: Managing a Project” and “Prince2 in Practice: Directing a Project”. The first text is directed at project management practitioners using the Prince2 methodology to manage a project and contains descriptions of the key themes, process models, deliverables, and information on how to tailor the methodology to suit individual projects. Prince2 in Practice: Managing a Project also contains cross-references to techniques which can be used within the Prince2 framework. The 2^nd text is aimed at the senior executives that sponsor and oversee projects and provides role specific guidance for overseeing a project. Terminology in the texts has also been updated to reflect terminology used elsewhere by the OGC.

Separating activities into the areas of project management and project direction also simplifies the language in the texts and eliminates many of the contradictions that plagued the previous single text. It is hoped that these changes will succeed in making the methodology easier to follow and improve project results.